Ajit Pai has been confirmed for another term at the FCC

Ajit Pai has been confirmed for another term in the FCC and will continue serving as chairman.

Current FCC Chairman and former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai has been confirmed by the US Senate to serve another term in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), ArsTechnica reports.

In his eight months as FCC Chairman, Pai has most notably tried to reverse the February 2015 reclassification of internet service providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. The would mean the end of net neutrality, which states that service providers cannot degrade internet connections based on their origin. Prior to this classification, there were numerous of examples of ISP's throttling services like Netflix in order to bolster their own offerings.

Good to hear. I'd like to see deregulation in the internet space and don't want government regulating businesses on what they can and can't do with the service they provide.

A lot of scaremongering going around. If there wasn't as much regulation, there would be more companies who provide internet services and consumers would have greater choice. So Company X does shady practices like throttles streaming from sites they aren't affiliated with? The consumer has the choice to leave that provider and move to one that doesn't do that. More consumers will move to that provider and force the other companies to stop doing shady stuff like that.

The internet is no different to any other industry. The free market works if you stop the government over-regulation.

To add to my last paragraph (apparently too late too edit), a big part of the problem is public utilities commissions (or whatever they're called) making sweetheart deals with one provider and only one provider.

Exactly why I said less government regulation would mean more players to enter the market and compete for the consumer's coin. By having such high amounts of regulation, it forces out smaller players from entering the market who might have had innovative ideas on how to run the broadband business.

What I don't buy into is the scaremongering put out there that a company *must* comply with X, Y and Z because that's the populist online opinion. i want the consumer to be empowered to spend their money where they see fit, not where the government sees fit. If a company is not performing at an acceptable standard, another company would have come in and filled that gap, and consumers will move to that provider.

The free market is a great thing, only when government intervention is kept to a minimum.

I honest to God wish there was time machine technology so we could show people like you how stupid literally everything you say turns out without literally screwing the whole world and then leave you there. Liberals and populists have their own stupid taglines, but the whole "those greedy, self-serving corporations that have done nothing but attempt to screw customers out of every single dime they can are only doing that because they aren't FREE enough! Dropping all those pesky consumer protections will totally make them change!" line is easily the stupidest one of them all.

Free market capitalism is just as flawed and guaranteed to inevitably fail as communism is/was, and just as prone to cronyism and corruption, but you people are somehow brainwashed into giving up everything. The only reason people in rural areas even HAVE access to high speed internet is because the government provided these regional monopolies, otherwise these people aren't even worth serving to these companies. What about individuals freedom to use these services as they need/see fit? Why is personal freedom only something you seem to care about when it doesn't infringe on some company's freedom?

More players won't enter the market, we (the consumers) will just get screwed and we'll have no other service to go to so we'll just have to deal with it. The trend has been for these big companies to merge, not for new players to emerge.

I'm located in Central Iowa and have one choice for internet. Sure we might get more in 2 - 3 years but there are plenty of people in the US that have no other choice.

for new providers to come in you seem to have no idea how expensive it is to get into the game. The big dogs like Verizon and Comcast just wreck them in lawsuit after lawsuit. Not to mention the costs associated with running internet lines to everyone's house or the cost of agreements to get into the top tier providers.. I will say there are some small companies that have been able to compete with the big providers but it hasn't been without its struggles.

This country screwed up when it allowed all of these monopolies of internet companies years ago. local cities did not want to build out or pay for the infrastructure so they signed monopoly agreements with companies to maintain and run it. If you want to read more about the real situation google "Internet Monopolies USA".

"Now here is a bunch of stuff that we will make sound really bad because we disagree with it and will give you no resources to look up these things yourself or any rationalizing of the opposing side of the argument" (the modern media)

Yeah. Net neutrality keeps out corporate influence, which is worse than "big government regulation". The idea that there would be more competition if you only got rid of the regulation is a crock. Every time regulation is lessened, those already in power continue to consolidate it.

It's not just about Net Neutrality, the guy has also cancelled a bill that would prevent the telecoms from mining our communications & personal info & selling it. Now the Telecoms can sell every last bit of information you send on their network & all the personal info they have on you.

Bingo. Pai, like the bums that nominated him, only seek to keep the crappy fiefdoms the existing telecoms have established and expand their power. Make no mistake, it's anti-consumer, anti-competitive, and anti-"freedom".

Internet is a utility and should be treated as such. Slowing down Netflix because they aren't your specific service is a bum move. Verizon customers who see no Samsung Cloud on their Galaxy phones know what's up here.

Might want to look past his quotes and think about what his proposals will do to the internet.
Also, please explain how allowing an internet provider to pick which content I can access enhances my freedom.
Please explain how allowing my internet provider to charge a toll on services I want, ie streaming video the don't own, enhances my freedom.